This follows their previous 300 million yen ($2.4 million at the exchange rate then) funding in May of 2015 and 1 billion yen (about $8.3 million) funding in November of the same year. The latest funding means that the company has raised a total of 4.5 billion yen (about $40 million) in funding to date.

B->Dash is a web-based marketing platform that allows a company to integrate data from different points of their entire marketing process and analyze it comprehensively on an all-in-one basis.

The service’s major clients include Kirin Brewery and Okasan Online Securities. From Scratch will use the funds to enhance the marketing platform, especially by strengthening data integration and data processing capability as well as further development of artificial intelligence technologies.

Masaru started his career as a programmer/engineer, and previously co-founded several system integration companies and consulting firms. He’s been traveling around Silicon Valley and Asia exploring the IT industry, and he also curates event updates for the Tokyo edition of Startup Digest.